Category: Culture War
The Hope of the Church and the World: Once more on “Countercultural”
Jonathan Leeman of 9Marks left a comment on my previous post that I think worth highlighting in full. He writes: Thanks for the post, Matthew. Many things I agree with. A couple thoughts: (i) We tried to adopt an anti-declinist...
Writing as though History Happened: On Being Countercultural Christians
“We live in a darkening civilization in which worldlings seek to divide Christ’s garments among them…Evangelicals…are beleaguered in China, prohibited from building churches in Saudi Arabia, arrested for distributing literature in Turkey, and no less tragic, are often vilified in...
The Evangelical War on Contraception
If you haven’t heard, evangelicals are currently campaigning against contraception. Oh, you haven’t? Well, I can’t blame you. After all, it was only two years ago when a evangelical theologian seriously proposed that churches should give out contraception to single...
Hobby Lobby and China’s Abortion Policy
In the ongoing public dispute over whether Hobby Lobby is justified in its resistance to the so-called “contraception mandate,” the reductio ad China has been one of the more effective rhetorical moves that liberals have made. Rachel Held Evans has...
On Joseph Bottum’s Enchantment and Public Arguments
Joseph Bottum is back to singing the “re-enchantment” song, suggesting that conservatives ought give up “preaching social ethics” because it’s “boring and it’s doomed”: Forget the culture-wars crap. It was a fight worth having, back in the day when there...
The Election Disaster? Social Conservatives and Hope
Since the election, conservative evangelical handwringing over the future has reached something of a fevered pitch. Al Mohler has been the loudest voice, pronouncing the election a “disaster” for social conservatives, a point that was repeated by my friend Denny Burk. ...
With a grin: rejecting the victim’s stance
One of the great follies of our day is that every group’s story has become a tragedy. Our society has increasingly embraced a discourse of victimization, in which every subculture tends to define itself in terms of grievances created by...
What’s Conservative about “Non-Culture War Conservatism”?
That’s the question my friend Greg Forster put to me after I listed four “moves” that I think conservative folks should make to avoid getting caught up by the culture wars. It’s probably safer for me simply to agree with...
The Christian Right’s Democratic Virtues: An Interview with Jon Shields
Earlier this year I raved about an important book that has been (unfortunately) overlooked by most commentators on evangelical political engagement. I invited Professor Shields to answer a few questions based on the work and he graciously accepted. 1)...
Four Moves for a Non-Culture War Conservatism
I’ve been going on about “non-culture war” conservatism over the past two weeks, attempting to delineate its characteristic shape over and against some of its rivals. It’s possible that the position is substantively no different than that held by the...